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Live Streaming: Everything You Need To Know

If you are looking to take your brand further, going the live streaming way is a natural choice – as much as 80%of your audience would rather watch a video than read a blog. Learn more about how to capture this audience attention here.

What is Live Streaming?

Live streaming helps viewers watch the live video of any event, or program - the same time it is being performed rather than watch a recorded version of it. It could include anything from breaking news broadcasts, sports events, videos streamed live by friends and family, videos of parties or even conferences, concerts and parties.

Statistics have shown that the audience for viewing internet live video events increased by 81% in 2016. Breaking news forms the most widely watched form of live event, followed by conferences and festivals.

What do you need for live streaming?

To make a live streaming video, you need, first and foremost a good internet connection. The internet connection should be steady and reliable, and there should be no danger of the connection stopping for periods of time. Pay special attention to both the upload and download speed. For example, high upload speed will give greater quality videos

Next, you need some kind of video source—an HD camera is preferable, provided that it has a proper HD-SDI or HDMI outputs. A proper video camera is preferable to a DSLR camera for live streaming video.

Remember to stream in a format supported by the most devices. Use formats like HDS or HLS to stream your video. Try to avoid Flash.

If you are using your laptop to live stream your video, make sure that the laptop has a minimum of 2GB RAM, and a minimum of 500 MB free storage space.

Also have some vision/audio editing software and a software encoder with you. An encoder will convert your live video stream into a digital signal.

Popular Live Streaming Services

Here are some of the services that you can go for:

YouTube

You Tube is a video-sharing website that is known to anyone who uses the internet. Here, you can get videos of virtually anything you want. Now, with its live streaming feature, you can even share your live videos with the audience in a few easy steps. There are a few things you need before using YouTube to launch live streaming videos:

Make sure your channel is verified

Ensure you have no live stream restriction for at least 90 days.

If you are using the mobile option for live streaming, you channel must have at least 10,000 subscribers.

Setting up Live Streaming:

If you are using a laptop or a desktop, go to the Creator Studio page and click the live streaming option on the left hand side. It is generally the third option.

If you are using YouTube app, you can directly start your live streaming with the help of this YouTube page.

You Tube offers three options for live streaming:

Stream Now- This is the quickest way for live streaming.

Events-This option helps you preview your videos before sharing and

Mobile (with separate options for Android and iPhone and iPad users). This options lets you stream through the YouTube app itself.

Using encoders:

You must download encoding software before starting your live stream. Your encoder is needed to start the live stream. In fact, the moment you stop streaming in your encoder, you will go offline.

Some of the encoders supported by YouTube are:

Mobile Server

Air Capture

Wirecast Go

Wirecast Play

Gameshow

Using live streaming with hangouts:

If you want to use YouTube Live with Google Hangouts, follow these simple steps:

Go to Creator Studio > New Live Event> Quick (using Google Hangouts on Air)> Go live now or schedule, as per your requirements> broadcast with Google Hangouts.

You can control who sees this broadcast.

Promoting your livecast:

You may share a teaser of your upcoming live event on your channel and share the link of the live streaming on social media websites. Create a section in your channel where viewers can display upcoming events so that they will know when your event will start.

While your live stream is going on, you can create feature highlight clips to attract new visitors. Remember to keep an archive and to include the live stream in your playlists.

Tips and tricks for YouTube live streaming:

Ensure that your bitrate does not exceed the amount of outbound bandwidth.

Use a reliable network and internet connection.

Use standard video equipment to get a better video quality.

Use professional hardware and software encoders.

Remember to test your setup before you go live.

Facebook

This popular social media network is not far behind the competition when it comes to sharing live videos. Increasing numbers of people are turning to Facebook to broadcast and share their live streamed videos with the audience. Ease of setup combined with Facebook’s popularity makes it a great platform to share live videos.

In fact, in the latest update of Facebook live, Facebook has enhanced functionalities that will allow users to live stream from webcams and personal computers instead of only from a mobile device.

How to Set Up:

In order to use Facebook live on your computer, you need to download an app first. Try OBD Studio if you are a MAC or Linux user, or XSplit Broadcaster for Windows PC.

Now, login to Facebook through your mobile app or through your computer. Tap the empty status space where you find “What’s on your mind” written. A menu will drop-down. From this menu, select “Live Video”.

Choose your audience and give a description for your video and click “Go Live.” You broadcast will begin after a three second countdown. You are now live!

Your video will be broadcasted as “Your_Profile_Name” was live.

Promoting your live video:

You can post an announcement on your Facebook profile page or on other pages that you have so that others can know about the event. You can even post a short video as a sort of trailer. If you want to gain a wide reach, you can make use of paid Facebook ads.

Tips and tricks for Facebook live videos:

Remember to have a strong connection when you go live.

Respond to users’ comments on your videos. Remember to thank them.

Use a catchy description that will help the audience know at once what the video is about.

If possible, try to reduce the background noises as much as possible.

Livestream

Livestream, as the name itself suggests is a video sharing platform through which users can share videos through the internet. Android, Apple TV, iOS and Roku all support LiveStream.

How to set up:

Log in to your LiveStream producer and open the program you want to share with the audience. If you want to display video from another output source, go to the outputs source option and add an output source by clicking the ‘+’ tab. After you click “Save”, you will get the required images on your desktop or projector screen.

If you want to capture from your desktop, select the “No Camera” option. It is recommended that you choose to go live via a preview.

If you do not want to broadcast your whole screen, select “zoom in” or “+” icon. Click a few times until green brackets appear on the screen. With the green brackets, capture the area you want to make visible. The part outside the green brackets will not be seen by the audience.

How to Promote Livestream:

Similar to all other live streaming platforms, you can mention about your upcoming live video by providing a link and time to your video through your social media profiles. You can even create a teaser trailer and share it with your potential audience.

Tips and tricks for LiveStream live videos:

LiveStream comes with a host of advanced features. You can use them for creating the best quality videos. You can create a backup stream which is useful in the case of poor connections or power failures. You can use other features like hardware encoding, using a bonded network to stream, ad insertion features, usage of the chroma key etc. to enhance your video.

Try to have a strong internet connection for streaming your live video.

Other streaming services:

There are multiple other streaming services you can use to livestream your videos. For example, UStream is a great video streaming website used by more than 80 million viewers and broadcasters. To live stream a video using UStream, login to your UStream account, click “Go Live.” You can adjust audio levels to suit your purpose. To start broadcasting, click the “Start Broadcast” button. You can even record your videos on “Start Record” button. You get options to share your broadcast details through Facebook and Twitter as well.

Bambuser and Vokle are two other platforms for sharing your live video streams. Set up accounts with these platforms and begin streaming live videos with the click of a few buttons!